Living OrganisationsBringing the

Organisational Machine to Life

Terrence BishopArisa Inlakesh

Based on the book Reinventing Organizations

by Frederic Laloux

What Problem?

Runaway Subtle Violence in Language

Change is Happening

• New Consciousness is Already Emerging• New ways of seeing, sensing and responding to

dynamic environments– Changing markets, regulatory environments, staff

demands, consumer demands, executive needs• New values, new business models, new language• Case studies reveal solid patterns of change

– New organisational structures– Supported by new business processes– Inspiring new forms of work and livelihood

Is it real?

Is the ‘New Consciousness’ Real?

• Evolutionary emergence is the one constant• The way things are is not how they were• In the future, our modern ways are primitive

RED ORGANIZATIONSStreet gangsMafiasMercenary armies

RED-POWERStreet gangsMafiasMercenary armies

Like a Wolf Pack:Coherence through fearToughest as leader

RED BREAKTHROUGHS1. Invention of leadership2. Enables group focus

Red Benefits:Large task achievementSurvival through bonding

AMBER ORGANIZATIONSCatholic churchArmiesGovernment agenciesPublic school systems

AMBER-TRADITIONALCatholic churchArmiesGovernment agenciesPublic school systems

Like an Army:Rigid rulesImpersonal rolesLeadership by appointment

AMBER BREAKTHROUGHS1. Formal hierarchies2. Replicable processes

AMBER-TRADITIONAL• Rigid rules• Impersonal roles• Appointed leaders

Amber benefits:Enables large organisationsPersistent goals through time

AMBER ORGANIZATIONS• Rigid rules• Impersonal roles• Appointed leaders

Unhealthy Amber:Violent (red) leadershipWorkers as ‘slaves’Difficult to adapt and change

ORANGE ORGANIZATIONSMultinational organisations- McDonalds, Coke, ToyotaAirlines, large miningGlobal Money and Banking

ORANGE-ACHIEVEMENTMultinational organisationsWall Street

Like a Machine:Assembly of defined, discreet functionsPredictable and controllableLeadership based on effectiveness

ORANGE BREAKTHROUGHS1. Innovation2. Accountability3. Meritocracy

ORANGE-ACHIEVEMENT1. Innovation2. Accountability3. Meritocracy

Orange Benefits:Iterative complexitySupports innovationDistributes wealth based on merit

ORANGE ORGANIZATIONS1. Innovation2. Accountability3. Meritocracy

Unhealthy Orange:Isolates leaders from realityDehumanises workersConcentrates wealth and power

Notice…

• With each new worldview, the way everything is done is different

• Each new emergence involves rethinking every aspect of our ‘way of doing things’…– beliefs about why and what we are doing– language, metaphors, myths– organisational model, task and process structures– goals and success measurement

• Proof it is happening is the presence and robustness of the conversation about it

GREEN ORGANIZATIONSStarbucksSouthwest AirlinesZappos.comBen & Jerry’s

GREEN-PLURALISTICStarbucksSouthwest AirlinesZappos.comBen & Jerry’s

Like a Family:Relationships matterMinimal hierarchyGrowth and Happiness for everyone

GREEN BREAKTHROUGHS1. Values-driven culture2. Empowerment3. Stakeholder model

GREEN-PLURALISTIC1. Values-driven culture2. Empowerment3. Stakeholder model

Green Benefits:Collective productivitySensitive to consumer contextEvokes creativity and loyalty

GREEN ORGANIZATIONS1. Values-driven culture2. Empowerment3. Stakeholder model

Unhealthy Green:Lack of structureLoss of competitive spiritVulnerable to values gridlock

What’s next?

• Study by Frederic Laloux• Case studies involving 30 organizations

– From a few hundred to several thousand staff– Engineering, retail, health care, mental health,

schools, media, food processing, e-commerce, +– Short and long value chains

• Reveals new organizational model that offers major breakthroughs in market performance

TEAL ORGANIZATIONSBuurtzorgMorning StarPatagonia+++

Evolutionary

TEAL-EVOLUTIONARYBuurtzorgMorningstarPatagonia

Like a Living System:Evolutionary growthInternally governed adaptation to changeSense and respond relationship with environment

TEAL BREAKTHROUGHS1. Evolutionary Purpose2. Self Responsibility3. Wholeness

Evolutionary

TEAL BREAKTHROUGHS1. Evolutionary Purpose2. Self Management3. Wholeness

Teal Benefits:Self-responsive to threats and opportunitiesEnables creative potential of all workersEliminates executive decision overloadStreamlines processes to improve productivity

Teal Breakthroughs

Evolutionary PurposeSelf Management

Wholeness

InnovationAccountability

Meritocracy

Enables group focusInvention of leadership

Values-driven cultureEmpowermentStakeholder model

Replicable processesFormal hierarchies

Unfolding Patterns

red amber orange green teal

structure fluid, personality based

rigid pyramid

pyramid with tunnels

empowered pyramid

living system

leadership fear rules hero servant inspiration

decisions top-down impulsive

top-down (rule based)

top-down (impact based)

consensus advice process

promotions boss’ darling

credentials best achiever

most respected

holds best space

compensation by decree salary incentives team bonus self determined

transformation back to roots

diagnosis,design, remedy

culture shift re-view purpose and processes

Perspectives from Philippe Bailleur

Evolutionary Purpose

Why the organization existsWhy am I involved?• Assumptions about what matters• Hierarchy of purpose and function

(not of power or people)• Supporting practices:

– Recruitment– Empty chair meeting practice

Essence of Focus and Commitment

Evolutionary PurposePatagonia's Mission Statement Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.

Buurtzorg (USA) Mission Statementto change and improve the delivery and quality of home health care through the leadership and collaboration of the community nurse, allowing the individual to receive the kind of care they most need, where they most want it, and thus avoid more costly institutional care for as long as possible.

Evolutionary ProcessesStrategy

Product management and innovation

Targets

Performance Management

Meetings

Competition

Profit and market share

Planning and BudgetsMarketing

Change management

On BoardingRecruitment

Self Management

• No-one is the boss of anyone else– although the CEO is still the visionary

• Highly structured without hierarchies– e.g. human cell, morning traffic, forest– daily blogs, forums, transparency

• Supporting Practices– advice process for decision making– deep listening for conflict resolution– peer recruitment and evaluation

Essence of Distributed Intelligence

Decision Making

• Hierarchical vs. Consensus• Transcend and Include: Advice Process

– Seek advice from people with expertise– Seek advice from those impacted by decision

• Not everyone is equal in all matters– Fluid hierarchies of recognition, influence and skill

• Live with the consequences of your decisions– Self and Peer reviewed

Remuneration

• Everyone decides their own pay level– valued by usefulness of perspectives

and willingness and skill in sharing– hybrid package of salary and incentives

• Advice process feedback from local committee• Everyone knows everyone’s package

– transparency removes salary as a stressor

Inner Self Management

• personal transformation required…– finding your role in the creation of every outcome– self evaluating behaviour in every context– self measurement of contribution and flow– awareness of changing emotional states– acknowledging to others of mistakes– identifying the ways others made success possible

Self Management ProcessesDecision Making

Project managementPerformance management

Staff functions

Compensation and incentivesJob titles and job descriptions

Dismissal

Crisis managementMeetings

Conflict management

Wholeness

• More than just the driven, rational achiever• Space for play, intuition and vulnerability• Honesty about strengths and weaknesses• Supporting practices:

– Ground rules for safe space • Emotional realities, mental perspectives, spiritual views

– Office or factory building design and decor– On-boarding process– Meeting practices

Essence of Creative Engagement

Reinventing WholenessStorytelling

Compensation and Incentives

Recruitment

Working Hours

Meetings

Job titles and job descriptions

Conflict Resolution

Feedback and EvaluationsSafe Space

Office Spaces

On Boarding Dismissal processes

Wholeness Coming Home

• personal transformation required– know that your success is assured, when you are

navigating without fear – there is enough.– receive graciously all events and changes as

opportunities to learn – nothing is by accident.– welcome the influence of others in the co-creation

of your shared future.– be unafraid to explore, to experiment and to fail.– know that you know for sure only one thing.

Teal Light

• Seek wholeness that includes personal gain– values rational, emotional & intuitive domains– new way of seeing creates new way of being

- confident in abundance vs. fearful of scarcity - absence of subtle manipulation or bullying - focused and playful, open and unafraid

– less serious, less dramatic, more purposeful– evolutionary purpose drives all words & deeds– willing to be surprised, to learn and be humble

Teal Shadow

• Emergence of healthy ego leads to narcissism– insistent about ‘how it should be’– devalues views of others– complex defences against critique and regret

• …can lead to the Master Manipulator– uses ‘skilful means’ in service of self– can justify or reframe almost any ethical challenge– uses drama to destabilise then influence systems

Case Study - Buurtzorg

German mental health hospitals

• Holistic, person-centred approach– Emotional, physical, spiritual

• Training in Active Listening and NVC• Tibetan Bells at every meeting

– Who am I trying to serve?

Secondary School in Berlin

• ESBZ – public, grades 7-12, 500 students• Self-managed students

– Self-paced learning, student logbooks– Mixed-grade classes where students teach students– Teachers as mentors and coaches

• Self-managed teachers– 2 teachers x 3 classes = ‘mini-school team’

• Self-managed parents– Building maintenance, some teacher salary

How to Get There?

• Explore existing assumptions– Prediction, control, power, processes– Discover how existing systems enforce values

• Explore through dialogue…– Personal transformation– Changes to business systems and processes– Train on how to experiment and decide

• Implement (hybrid?) advice process• Implement ‘sense and respond’ approach

Structures

Parallel Teams

Web of Contracts

Nested Teams

Everyday Processes

• Rituals processes –practices designed to evoke a way of seeing that serves teal principles– Remembering Purpose – why are we here?– Listening into Deep Presence with others– Exploring vs. instructing – mutual development– Watching for State Changes in self and other– Starting with Thank You … “It’s all good!”– Practise of welcoming problems

Transformational Skyhooks

• Remember your shared evolutionary purpose– Bring your passion to all you do at work– Commitment to manifesting the shared vision– Develop a natural clarity on priorities– Develop a natural trust in colleagues– Develop a naturally contagious enthusiasm

Transformational Skyhooks

• Remember to listen with the ears of the heart– Sensitive to the context of shared purpose– Hears and embraces both reason and feeling,

structure and free flow of the creative– Accepting and yet discerning, open yet alert– Natural integrative intelligence that is the seat of

creativity

Transformational Skyhooks

• Remember that context creates meaning– Watch for meaning displacement across contexts– Open to new and more constructive meaning in

the present context

• Welcome resistance and judgment– Shows where you are attached to old ways

Subtle Violence• The subtle body is an auric energy field that defines and animates

the human personality …– The environment in which the subtle body lives is made of thoughts,

words and actions that carry both meaning and emotion.– Different contexts are defined by different structures of meaning that

evoke different feeling tones and their behaviours.• e.g. home, work, intimate relationships, time alone, with friends, driving, etc.• created by the rules, agreements, contracts, instruction, information … spoken

and recorded, explicit and implied.– contexts create and inform the meaning attached to experience, and

are often skewed to favour those who created or control them.

• Where the structure of a context includes a threat (of punishment or withdrawal), language becomes an instrument of subtle violence

• Forcefulness and manipulation, so commonplace as to be barely questioned, are the everyday instruments of subtle violence.

NVC and RO

• The essence of teal is the absence of subtle violence from the language that defines the work context.

• The essence of NVC is a description and practise of a structure of language that is inherently non-violent.

• Every participant in a teal workplace will have their own form of NVC.

• NVC packaged for the corporate profit-driven context can be sold as the key that unlocks the possibility of a smooth transition into a more profitable and resilient teal way of doing business.